Charging for vehicle parking is a subject that has produced a variety of inventions and innovations. The most well-known inventions in this field are the parking meters in which a user has to insert coins or a credit card in order to obtain “parking rights”. Also the parking tickets in which a user has to input the date and time the vehicle proceeds to park are a well-known solution. And recently electronic parking tickets, which are a combination of parking tickets and electronic wallets, have been introduced.
One of the problems of the prior art solutions for charging for parking is the inconvenience caused to the user thereof. At the parking meter machines, the user has to insert coins, which he doesn't carry with him permanently, or a credit card, which also may not be available to the user at the time he wishes to park his vehicle. Moreover, getting parking rights involves the user's activity, whether it is inserting a credit card to the right port of the parking machine, or coins. The parking tickets also cause a great deal of inconvenience, since the user has to input the current date and time. In comparison with these solutions the electronic parking card affords certain relief; however, it is still incumbent upon the user to pre-purchase it, check municipality charges for parking in this zone, etc. In addition, whenever a user parks a vehicle over the allowed time he may have to pay a penalty, which means that he is overcharged for the same service.
In addition to the inconvenience of using the prior art parking methods, there is an additional drawback—from the social aspect. From a civilian's point of view, the abovementioned parking arrangements express a lack of confidence from authorities to the civilian, since in order to enforce the parking rules, the parking authorities (e.g. the municipality) uses inspectors and penalties. This results sometimes with ultimate financial results to the municipality, such as causing damage to public property in revenge.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system for charging for parking, which overcomes the abovementioned drawbacks of the prior art.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for charging for parking, which is more convenient to the user than the methods used in the prior art.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for charging for parking, which enables avoiding penalties.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for charging for parking, which increases the confidence of a user in the authorities, which results in financial benefits (less damage to public property, a better quality of life, etc.)
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.